How to Create a Personal Note-Taking System

From Bible notes to book notes to jotting down your ideas or quotes or whatever it might be that comes across your plate, having a place to store your notes and thoughts. Is increasingly important in today’s information saturated world. And so that’s why having a note taking system is just so critical.

But how do you build a good note taking system that doesn’t itself become an onerous burden to maintain? That’s what I wanna talk about. Today. In this episode we’re gonna be looking at building a personal note taking system or a PKM personal knowledge management system. If we want to get fancy, and we’re gonna look at some of the reasons why this might be an important thing for a Christian to have.

We’re gonna look at a methodology for helping to sort of guide your thinking about how you. Make and maintain a note taking system. And I’m gonna survey [00:01:00] some different note taking systems, some paper ones, some digital ones, and give you some pros and cons, things to think about for picking what one might best suit your personality and proclivities.

And finally, I’m gonna end with answering a question from the mailbag that actually pertains to this issue and how you might overcome some of the problems where. Your notes become a burden to you or they become sort of disorganized. But that’s what we’re gonna handle in this episode of the podcast, and I hope, uh, you find it helpful.

Well, welcome to the Redeeming Productivity Show. This is where we help Christians get more done and get it done. Like Christians, we apply biblical principles to thinking about productivity as believers, and we also practically look at systems to enable you to apply those principles in your day-to-day life.

And today is gonna be really practical episode as we look at personal knowledge management and note taking systems. So. [00:02:00] How do you create a personal note taking system? How do we go about doing this? Well. I think the big thing we gotta start with is sort of the theology aspect is why does this matter to us?

Why do we care about creating a system like this? And I think the big reason is because we want to become knowledge stewards and. This is really the core principle behind everything we talk about at redeeming productivity, and that’s that your life is not your own. You’ve been bought with a price, and so your entire life is a stewardship.

You’re not here for you. You are here for the glory of God. And so what I want to do when it comes to information and knowledge is I don’t wanna just be a passive consumer. I want to be an active. Steward the information that God gives me, the knowledge he gives me, I am to [00:03:00] shepherd that I’m, to use that in a way that is gonna be practically beneficial for me in my own growth.

Um, beneficial for others as I seek to serve them. And ultimately making sure that that’s shaping my character as a Christian too. And so this area of knowledge management is not, is not an unimportant thing. This matters. And so I think that’s the overarching principle is you reason, you might want to think about having a note taking system, having some way to curate the, the, the book notes you’re taking.

Bible study notes. Sermon notes, that kind of stuff. Um, or just your own ideas is because you’re a steward of that knowledge. It’s not just about you. Um. And so I have a couple ways as I’ve been thinking about this, about how you might, uh, become a knowledge steward and they all follow this paradigm of I want to go from a passive consumer to something else.

So the first way to become a knowledge [00:04:00] steward through having a note taking system is you wanna go from a passive consumer to a discerning thinker. You wanna go from passive consumer to discerning thinker, right? And this is, these are two different things. A passive consumer is just that they’re passive.

You, you, you take in a bunch of information, but you don’t really process it. Right? That’s the issue there. It’s like the person who, um, inhales a bag of chips but doesn’t chew them, really doesn’t even really enjoy them. You’re not, uh, actually doing anything with that. You’re just. Taking it all in, right?

It’s a passive thing versus an active thing, and so a discerning thinker. We’re, we’re taking and examining the stuff that’s coming into our heads and not just letting it go through without a second thought. Right. And I think like one biblical principle that apply here in second Corinthians, uh, ten five says, we destroy [00:05:00] arguments and every lofty opinion.

Raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. Right? And so there he is, speaking specifically about a philosophy, ideas, things like that, that might go against the scriptures and you say, Hey, don’t you don’t just take these things and be passive about it. You are engaging.

Warfare, spiritual warfare, the war of ideas, and this definitely applies to the thing that comes into our head, whether it’s through the internet or through conversations or through television or whatever it may be. But I think we might even generalize this more even beyond just the spiritual warfare thing is.

Christians take thinking seriously. Therefore, Christians should take information seriously. We should take knowledge seriously. We recognize that we don’t live in a world where ideas are neutral. There is a Christian worldview. We used to discern things by. And, [00:06:00] uh, that applies on these really important issues where, uh, spiritual discernment is involved.

But I think that it, it also should apply to, um, how we think about even stuff, uh, that like our, our general thinking. Even if you’re taking in a blog post or you’re taking in a podcast like this, are you just sort of sitting there with your mouth open? Like, whatever they say, they’re gonna shovel into me.

Or are you discerningly thinking about it and note taking a a as simple and as like, I don’t know, it sounds kind of pedantic of oh, how is note taking gonna help you become a discerning thinker because your processing it when I take notes. Um, I’ll give you a couple examples. When I take notes during a sermon, it makes me think more deeply about the sermon.

When I take notes during a class, it makes me think more deeply [00:07:00] about the lecture. When I am reading a book and I take notes in the margin or somewhere else, I’m processing it. The act of writing, the act of taking notes is forcing me to do something with it, right? Um, one of the things that can happen. Uh, with, um, people who run a businesses is, there’s a lot of business content out there on YouTube or podcasts, and you can get into this mode where you’re like, I’m quote unquote, researching.

And so you’re listening to these podcasts, you’re listening, watching these videos, and you’re saying, here, here’s all all these different ideas. This is great. All this is gonna help me. But actually what happens is if you don’t process and discern through that is those different. Uh, information sets become a burden to you.

Now you’ve got all these ideas. Many of them are competing. They’re, they’re frameworks that aren’t compatible with each other, and you haven’t done anything with it. So in the moment, it feels like you’re doing something important by [00:08:00] taking in all this information, but if you don’t actually apply it or discern through it, it actually will become a problem for you.

I see something similar happen with, um. Uh, Instagram, maybe this, this is probably applicable to men and women, but specifically I’m thinking. Um, there’s a lot of content for, for moms out there, and a lot of it is like, here’s how, here’s a way to think about cooking or tidying your home, or, um, vaccines or something like that, right?

And there’s all these different, different people out there, influencers that are saying, here’s the way to think about it. And you take all that in and you think, wow, I’m getting a lot of valuable information. And a lot of it is helpful. You think, oh, now I have a new recipe, or I, whatever it is, the type of content you’re into.

The problem is if you’re not being discerning about it, and specifically here in our scenario, we’re saying, Hey, take notes on stuff that you think might be helpful to force you to think through it. If you’re not doing that, you again, you end up with a bunch of competing [00:09:00] worldviews. You’ve got 10 different views on health you’ve got that aren’t compatible with each other, and you end up with this sort of amalgamation of.

Ideas in your head of incompatible worldviews that don’t actually make sense. If you actually tried to say, here’s all the things I believe about X, Y, and Z that I, that I learned from the content I consumed online. It doesn’t, it literally does not make a consistent view on that subject. And so my point is that what if with the content you consume, whether that’s social media or books.

Or even with reading the Bible is if you have a note taking system that access a filter, that forces discernment, at least some degree of discernment. Because as you jot the stuff down, you’re thinking, that doesn’t make sense. I just wrote two things down that I thought, oh, these are both helpful things, but they’re contradictory.

So for taking notes, it, it slows you down and that helps you to become a discerning thinker. [00:10:00] Uh, second, you know, a better way to become a steward of knowledge using note taking is it can take you from passive consumer. To purposeful learner. So again, it, it’s, it’s from passivity to intentionality. A purposeful learner.

When I sit down to watch, I’ll go back to the example of watching a YouTube video and I’m trying to learn something. If I have a notebook in front of me, the whole situation changes, right? If I’m sitting on the couch with a bowl of popcorn, I’m there to be entertained If I’m sitting at my desk. Watching the same video, but I have a notebook.

I’m there to be educated, right? It is a stance towards information and, and it’s okay to watch stuff for entertainment, but what I’m saying is that the notebook is the tool. It is the, the switch that makes you go from, from entertainment to education mode. The notebook is the key. It’s gonna help you [00:11:00] go from passive consumer to purposeful learner.

And again, if, if I want to take, uh, a biblical principle and, and try to apply it here, we might say, uh, from Proverbs 1514, the heart of him who has understanding, seeks knowledge, but the mouths of fools feed only on Folly. And now here, um, Solomon is talking about. The difference between the fool and the wise person, which he does quite a bit in Proverbs, and he’s saying the person who is understanding or discernment, they’re looking for knowledge, they’re seeking it out.

Right. But, but the contrast is the fool. They feed un folly. They’re just, they’re like, Hey, I’ll, I’ll take, I’ll take Folly all the day long. Right. And so h how does, uh, having a notebook help you with seeking out knowledge? Because again, it’s a stance. It’s the stance of saying, I’m looking to be educated, versus I’m passively just like.

Whatever it is, I’ll feed on the f It’s the mindless [00:12:00] consumer. We don’t want that. And so having a note taking system, a place where you’re, you’re taking the knowledge and you’re curating it into some sort of, whether that’s a notebook or an app, uh, Evernote or a obsidian or something like that. The, the, the reason you care about having.

A knowledge management system is, it’s gonna help you to think better. That’s the idea. And we’ll talk more about specific systems in a minute. If this seems a little bit vague, you’re like, yeah, but how do I actually do it? We’re gonna get to that, but I just wanna make my case here first. Um. So we’ve talked about being, uh, going from passive consumer to discerning thinker.

We’ve talked about going from passive consumer to purposeful learner. Third one is being a knowledge steward. Using a no, a notebook to help you do that is it helps you go from passive consumer to creative producer. Now that sounds like, uh, something that would be the credits at the end of a movie, but [00:13:00] when I say creative producer, I mean someone who does something with the knowledge you gain, right?

The passive consumer. What do they do? They take it in and they do nothing with it. They get fact on information. The creative producer takes the the calories of information and they transform them into action. They do something with them. They use that energy to actually be productive in the world. Okay, so the purpose of learning is not to get your head fat.

The purpose of learning is to. Exercise the creation mandate to rule and subdue the world God’s given you, and whatever corner he’s given you to do that with excellence, it’s to serve him by bearing his image in how you create and how you work. It’s to serve others, loving others through being a productive member of society.

Through serving them through your work and actions. Whether you’re a stay at home mom, you’re working in an office, you have your own [00:14:00] business, or you’re a pastor, whatever it is, curating the information around you, taking knowledge seriously, and perhaps using a note taking system for this. Helps you be somebody who actually makes something of the stuff you’re consuming.

It doesn’t just go in one ear and out the other. It goes one in ear, in one ear. You process it in your mind and then it goes onto paper, uh, or into a digital system so that you can use that later to build things. And again, if we wanna look at scriptural principles, uh, I would take us to, um. Uh, all the way back to Genesis, and I kind of just alluded to this, but the fact that we’re made in the image of God, right?

Genesis 1 27 through 28, God created a man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him, male and female. He created him. And God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, [00:15:00] and over every living thing that moves on the earth, right?

This is still in effect. We are still to be exercising dominion in this world and how I manage my home, how I mow my lawn, how I. Take the information I’m given and use it in a way to serve others, whether that’s just being someone who’s knowledgeable, because you take notes on the books you read. Or, and, and so you can give good advice.

You can give wisdom ’cause you’re trying to curate wisdom into your mind and, and the note taking system’s helping you to process that and store it in your mind, but also in a place you can retrieve it. If you’re a writer, this is absolutely critical as being a good note taker. But all of these things, we should think about them under the heading of, I’m an image bearer of God.

God has created me in his image and part of the way that I. Express that image is through working in a way. Like God works. [00:16:00] He, he created things orderly, right? Six days he created everything. Seventh day he rested. He has this orderly world he’s made, and I want my world that my little corner that he’s given me to steward and bear his image in.

I want that to be orderly too. That’s why we talk about productivity, you know, in terms of organizing your life, organizing your documents, right? Having things orderly. It’s not ’cause we’re all trying to be type A, it’s because we’re trying to be type G. We’re trying to be type image bearer of God, right?

That’s the idea is everybody’s a little bit different. Our personalities are different. Some people are gonna be meticulous about this, but every Christian should. Have order in their life. It can’t just be chaos because that is, chaos is ungodly. It’s God who brought order to the chaos and we bear his image when we do the same and all i’ll all’s I’m saying is we should do that in the information we consume and curate.

Having some sort of [00:17:00] notebook or note taking system helps you go from passive consumer to, uh, a creative producer. You’re taking information, you’re synthesizing it into something that will help serve and honor God and ultimately bear his image. Finally, uh, we want to be intentional doers. We want to go from passive consumer to intentional doer.

I. Don’t just want to consume, I want to use it. Right. We could, if we wanna draw on a biblical principle, James 1 22. Speaking of spiritual truth says, but be doers of the word, not hearers only deceiving yourselves, right? You want to be a doer of the word. So this applies specifically to when we hear God’s word, whether it’s preached and talked to us at our churches or through podcasts or whatever you’re listening to, or you’re hearing it and reading it.

In. The Bible as you’re studying it. The goal isn’t [00:18:00] to just acquire knowledge. We don’t just want to hear it. We want to do it right. Study of the Bible or hearing it preached it. It goes from you hear it. To you transform into theology, which is basically the principles. Okay. Understand the principles of these passage.

And then it goes to application. Once I, I wanna take those principles and I want to use them. And too often even the application is theoretical. It’s like I was just reading about, um, hospitality, the importance of being hospitable as a Christian. And I was like, yeah, I have a great theology of hospitality and this is where this is just.

You know, confession time, I was like, I understand hospitality. I could write a book on hospitality, but I don’t have people over, not nearly as often as I should. Right. That’s something. We could grow in as a family as being more hospitable. And that’s how you actually apply it. You don’t leave it in theory land.

You don’t leave it in theology land. You go from the [00:19:00] scripture to the principle to the application. You actually do the application. You don’t just be a here of the word, you do it. Right? And so, okay, what’s note taking have to do with this? It forces that process. This is why people often talk about the difference between Bible reading and Bible study.

When I study the Bible, I am not just being a hero of the word. I’m processing it often through writing and note taking, so that I’m taking those principles. I’m understanding the principles clearly, and then I’m turning that into application. How does this apply to my life? The, the process of of writing and note taking can facilitate that transformation from knowledge to action.

It won’t completely bridge the gap because even at the end of the day, you gotta stand up from the Bible sign. You actually go do the stuff that you learn in, in applied, in theory, right? But the note taking aspect can help you do it. My contention is this is, this has application [00:20:00] beyond just studying the Bible.

It, you take notes on books you’re reading, right? And it doesn’t have to be a Christian book. If you, you’re reading a nonfiction book, you’re saying, Hey, this is a great principle. You want to take the extra step of not just saying, oh, that was a profound epiphany I had from reading that. You wanna jot that down, process it, think about it, question it, and say, what I’m gonna do about this in my life.

And, and just speaking from my own experience, this is what note taking has done for me. It has enabled me to process the stuff I’m learning from the scriptures, from sermons, yes, but also from non-fiction books, from podcasts I listen to, from conversations I have, I write down the stuff that really resonates and then I spend time later processing it.

And it’s helped me, I think, to become a more thoughtful, discerning, intentional. Person with the information I’m learning. And ultimately, hopefully, because this is the aim of it, I’m trying to be a more faithful [00:21:00] steward of the knowledge God gives me. And so that’s the objective here and, and I think note taking can help us do that.

Having a note taking system can help you become a better steward of the knowledge God gives you by transforming you from passive consumer to a discerning thinker. Purposeful learner, creative producer, and intentional doer. That’s the big idea that I wanted to hit on in this episode. That is why we care about this.

You say, great Reagan, what do I do with that? How do we go from theory to practice in this very podcast episode to get meta on you? Um. I’ll give you a little methodology. I’m gonna give you a framework for how to think about this, and we’re gonna kind of narrow in our circles here. I’m gonna give you a framework next, and then I’m gonna give you some really practical survey of tools you can use to do this.

And along the way I’ll share the system I use, which if, if you [00:22:00] can call it a system, but I’ll share how I apply these principles in the way I take notes. Use them to process things. So I’m. Less passive and more active in how I use the knowledge God gives me. So, uh, we’re going to use an acronym here.

We’re gonna call this the reap method, right? Like you reap what you Sow, but it’s an acronym, REAP, and the R stands for, um. Receive. Right? So when you get new information that you think might be helpful, you gotta receive it. You gotta capture it somewhere. So whether that’s scripture or insights, uh, you get from a book or quote, whatever it is, you want to capture that somewhere, right?

And, and so without being too specific about this, like whether you use Apple Notes or, or a, a pen and paper. Whatever system you develop, you should have a place for jotting stuff down. Personally for me, uh, this is a couple places I [00:23:00] receive stuff, not in, not into my big note taking system. At first, I usually jot it down in this little notebook that I always have in my back pocket.

With a, with a pen that I carry in my pocket. That’s usually where stuff, if I have an idea or have something happens in a conversation, or even when I’m going on a hike, I rip this, whip this out, and I jot down the thing. And so that’s how I receive it. It also happens in my, my journal. I journal every day too, and so I’ll write stuff into my journal.

I’m like, oh, that’s a good idea, and I jot it there, circle it, and I process it Later. We’ll talk about processing it later also happens. This is what I mean, like it’s gonna happen anywhere you can. These things just. Fly wherever. You have to jot ’em down, put ’em down. It can be a voice memo, it can be Apple Notes.

I do it. I have, um, this, uh, waypoints, uh, planner that we actually sell these. If you’re interested in, in a, a planner based on the methodology we talk about, the Waypoint school planner is available@redeemingproductivity.com. But I use this every day to map my schedule, check off my [00:24:00] morning routine, that kind of stuff.

But there’s also a notes area. And in fact, just yesterday, oh no, it was two days ago. I took a whole bunch of notes on, uh, something I was thinking through, just ’cause this was the paper I had in front of me, and then that might be good enough. But some of these you’re gonna take to the next step and you’re gonna actually process them more.

But you have to receive the thing first. You gotta actually jot it down somewhere and, and whatever place is most convenient, that’s how you do it. You receive it first and then you’re gonna. Do something with it later. So what do you do? Well after you receive it, that’s the R. The E is you examine it and this just means you reflect on it.

You think on it, you analyze it through a biblical lens, right? You are actually thinking about it. And what writing something down allows you to do is it allows you to externalize and examine it. It’s hard sometimes to hold an idea in your head [00:25:00] and actually look at it from different sides. I, I kind of picture it like I have to get it out of my brain and onto paper so I can actually look at it.

Otherwise, it’s just bouncing around in my brain with all the other ideas, and so that can help you do it, is you’re, you’re taking it out of your head by. Writing it down to examine it, and this is where you are thinking about it and you’re saying, okay, what can I do with this? Like for example, I went for a walk the other day and I was thinking about ideas for topics to write on for redeeming productivity.

I was like, okay, what should I write on? And I jotted down probably 25. 30 different ideas in this little notebook, and they were real, they’re just shorthand. Just a couple words each. Most of them were junk. I, I, I sat down to examine the stuff I jotted down, sort of fleetingly. I was like, [00:26:00] most of this isn’t really useful to me.

But what I did then is the few things I’m like, this might be something, and I started to think about them more and flesh them out. I’m like, yeah, there I was examining that this is worthwhile. Those were the things that I eventually moved into my note taking system, which I keep on my computer, which I use an app called Log Seek for.

I hesitate to recommend it. It’s not, it’s not that great. I’ve just been using it forever. I’m gonna talk about apps and things like that in a moment, but. I put it all in there, the good stuff. Right? And so I like, I think about almost these different levels. Levels are like filters like. With the receive step.

I’m like catching stuff in the first, uh, part of the filter, right? These are, if, if you’ve ever filtered out, um, like actually filtered something like dirt, the first part’s catching the big rocks, right? It has the bigger openings. I’m catching a lot of, a lot of stuff in the receive area. Like, and it’s not everything.

I’m not trying to jot down everything, but anything I think might be useful when I get to the [00:27:00] examine step, that’s where I’m sort of adding a, a thinner grate to filter things through and like, is this more worthwhile? How does this fit in? How do I actually think about this? Then you move it on to the apply phase, and this is where you’re actually thinking a little bit more deeply in it.

So with notes, for example, this is when I’m in my note taking software. I’m developing an idea into a greater note. And you say, is this only for writers? ’cause like often these are things I’m writing on. No, I have notes on everything. I have notes on gardening. I have notes on, um, managing the home. I have notes on finances and investing.

I have notes on, uh. Just different ideas. I’m interested in historical figures and it’s not ’cause I’m trying to be the library of Congress. It’s because I think these things are interesting and I want to think on them. And my note taking system is my partner in thinking. And [00:28:00] so. Usually in these notes that the ones that are applicable, part of that is in this apply stage is I’m thinking through, okay, but what can I do with this?

Here’s the key. What are the action steps? How does this connect to my life, to the goals that the five year aspirations I have the long term stewardship of this life, and what do I need to do here that’s gonna, taking this information, that’s gonna help me be more obedient to God, help me be more faithful in the work he’s given me to do.

My family or whatever. Right. Now the last, um, one is the uh P, which is preserve. So as you’re going through this process and you’re filtering down through each of these steps, you’re receiving, you’re examining, you’re applying, finally you’re preserving, what’s the stuff I want to keep?

What’s the stuff that I think is really, really helpful for the long term? And this is where a lot of this is borrowing from. Uh, SOkay [00:29:00] Errands book. Uh. On taking smart notes or might be on smart notes, something like that. I actually did an episode on this I think like five years ago. If you look back to, to type in smart notes into the search, you will find an episode on this methodology for note taking.

Have you heard of the Del Kean? That kind of thing. Interconnected note taking. There’s a book on it. I’ve. Uh, did a little review episode on that many years ago. But the preserve phase is basically, it’s a type of note where you’re saying, I wanna keep this for the long term. And there’s different ways you can do this depending on the system you’re keeping, whether it’s a, whether you’re doing this on paper, on note cards, uh, or you’re doing this in a, a digital system for me, and this is how I borrow it.

I tag certain notes as permanent notes. This again, this comes from, uh. So, okay. Aaron’s book, which is based on this guy Nicholas Lu’s work and how he, how he took notes. It doesn’t matter how you do it, uh, in notion. So if you use, uh, again, [00:30:00] just to shill some of our products, we have a, a notion template, uh, called the Christian Productivity Planner.

You can get that@christianproductivity.com. Part of that is a knowledge management notes management system. And the simplest way. To take these notes from, oh, I have all this stuff I’ve captured. I, or I’ve received, I’ve examined, I’ve applied. I have lots of notes in there, but they kinda get mixed in the mess.

Favorite some of them? That’s what I do. I have a set of favorited notes and those are like. The extra super filtered stuff, right? This is the gold with all the draws burned off and however you do it. Say you’re using a paper system, I recommend this too. Maybe you dog ear the page in your, in your, uh, moleskin or maybe if you’re using note cards, you have a section where you’re like, this is the gold, or you have a color coding system.

These are the. Best things I have that across any different domain of knowledge I’m talking about because that’s where the good stuff is. If I go into [00:31:00] my note taking system and I pulled up everything marked permanent or tagged as permanent note. These are my best ideas. This is a synthesis of, of often a bunch of different stuff I’ve read or just really good quotes.

It’s the best of the best and I, I love that. Digging through that stuff feels like, uh, I don’t know, it feels like Christmas morning to me. Every time I go back through that stuff, I’m like, man, these are the best ideas. And so that’s, that’s the methodology here for you in the abstract. Receive, examine, apply, preserve.

That’s sort of the note taking. Method. I’m gonna leave you with the reap method. Receive, examine, apply, preserve. Okay, let’s talk brass tacks. Where should you keep this knowledge management note taking system? What’s the best app? What’s the best planner? What’s the best notebook? I can’t tell you that because I think this is such a personal thing, how our brains work, what we enjoy doing.[00:32:00]

It’s so personal. I don’t think that it can be prescriptive. I can’t tell you what’s gonna work best for you. My own system, as I’ve kind of alluded to some of the different aspects of it, it’s a mess. I mean, I have, there’s a method to the mess, but, uh. It’s not something that I’d say, oh, go do it exactly this way, because even, even the principles you might apply to, to manage a system like this, they’re gonna evolve.

They’re gonna change, they’re gonna be a little bit messy. What can I tell you? Well, a few things. Um, let’s, let’s talk a little bit practically about this, uh, choosing your system. This is gonna be a personal thing, but I’ll give you some guiding principles. The number one thing is simplicity is best.

If you’re watching this on YouTube or on the video version on Spotify, there’s little meme here. It’s kind of got like a bell curve format where the dumb guy on the left, he’s just using Apple Notes for his notes. The guy in the middle has this super complex connection between Rome [00:33:00] research, obsidian pocket.

There’s a bunch of apps, all with arrows, right? And then. The guy at the other end of the bell curve, the really smart guy with like the Jedi robe. He’s just got Apple notes again. And so the idea is the dumb guy was just the Apple Notes and the really, really smart guy is just the Apple Notes. I think the, the funny thing about this is.

It’s true the simpler, the better. And so, what’s the simplest system for me? That’s the question you wanna ask. If you are a researcher, your system’s going to be complex. If you’re a writer, your system’s probably gonna be more complex. If you’re just trying to keep notes for your own sake, keep it simple.

Don’t build some giant zadel kastan thing with interconnected graph that makes API calls to itself. Like, what is this? Calm down. Keep it as simple as you possibly can because it will grow. If it. Gets too big, or too complex and frustrating ’cause you overcomplicated, you’re not gonna use it. Keep it [00:34:00] simple. I also say, lean into the format you like, right? If you’re like, I just really enjoy working with paper, but I want to use these apps, stick with paper.

If you enjoy it, if you enjoy it, you use it more. Uh, and then third, just experiment. Experiment. So as we look at a couple different systems here, if you one latch on, you say, I’d love to try that. Just try it. You know, there’s not much you can lose. Just try it for a few months and, and if you’re like, yeah, that doesn’t really suit me, then at least you know Okay. Let’s look at a few examples. What are some note taking systems that might work for you? One would be, uh, paper. Notes organized, right? So here’s a file cabinet drawer. This is actually from, uh, I believe this is from George Carlin, the comedian. And he kept notes on a bunch of different ideas, facts, things like that.

And he would pull them out to make his, uh, comedy bits from, and he just had a bunch of folders of notes. It wasn’t, it wasn’t, uh, you can [00:35:00] see this is like kind of messy, but he didn’t use a computer or any of that kind of stuff. He just filed stuff away. I think there’s a real advantages, even this in 21st century, I think paper type systems have some advantages where they help you to focus, uh, they help you not to get bogged down in.

Tagging everything exactly right. And there’s, I like the limitation too, of paper, of if there’s a physical limitation, I can’t just dump copy, paste a, a Wikipedia article in here. It’ll take up my file drawer too quickly if I start doing that. It’s just the good stuff. Um, another example related to this would be a note card system.

So people, like, if you know the, the author Ryan Holiday. He writes on like, stoicism Obstacle is the way those type of books. He uses physical note cards to write all of his books. And he has, if you wanna look it up, he has some articles on this, on his website, uh, where he details how he does it. And it’s.

He’s got a whole system for [00:36:00] it, quotes on different topics, all of that. He likes doing it the physical note card way where he writes a quote down and that’s basically his system for, for taking notes. And then he transforms those little jots onto note cards into bigger projects Later, he’ll actually get a second uh, box and you’ll pull out stuff from all his other boxes that he might.

Pertain to the current project, and then he arranges those on a huge table. It’s a very interesting thing, but he likes the physical aspect to it. I think there’s some advantages there. The other thing, if we go to the simplicity side of the spectrum is what’s called a commonplace book. So here’s, I think this is from the 17th century.

If I remember right from this image I pulled up, I don’t think there’s anybody important. But basically the point is historically people have kept what’s called commonplace books. Seneca Marcus Aurelius, Leonardo Da Vinci, his sketchbooks also had all kinds of like. He had his grocery list, but he also had quotes.

He had to have stuff in there. John Locke, Ralph Otto, Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, CS Lewis, Thomas, [00:37:00] Jefferson, many of the founding Fathers of America, they all kept what they called commonplace books, and that’s where they would jot down ideas and notes. It was just something they kept with him because they recognized their mind couldn’t keep everything.

So if you wanna go like the simplest and also like. I don’t know the best historic pedigree. Go with the commonplace book. Just get a mole skin. Or better yet, get a, a better quality book like a Luke, Luke term. Can’t pronounce it. Roia. Um, get a good quality notebook and just carry it around with you. And when you have ideas, you hear a quote or you take a sermon note in there or whatever.

You just have a place you keep ’em and you’re saying, I’m not doing much more than that. I just, this is where I put everything. That’s fine. If that works for you and, and the level of complexity of your life, then I say more power to you. Now on the digital front, there’s a ton of options and we could spend hours talking about this, but I’ll save you and talk about some of the, the top level ones.

A lot of people like Evernote, it is a notebook style thing. [00:38:00] It’s kind of like having a bunch of notebooks within notebooks. That’s the way to think about it. But you can have formatted text, you can store PDFs in there, images, all kinds of stuff. You can tag stuff, organize it a bunch of different ways.

Evernote’s been around for a long time. A lot of people love Evernote. That’s a good one as a note taking system where you can just drop everything in there and you can organize it to your heart’s delight and search it. That’s the nice thing about digital more generally, you can search it. Um. The Apple notes a lot.

Apple Notes is incredible now. So if you’re an Apple user and you have like a Mac and an iPhone or you’re like in the Apple ecosystem, apple Notes is like the simplest entry. You’re probably already jotting down notes in there anyway. Why not take full advantage of it, use their folders, that kind of stuff to organize it better.

Um, back on paper, there’s also, uh, bullet journaling. This has been around again since 2010, somewhere around there. This is just a methodology for using a blank journal. To store stuff so you can do everything to-do list, calendar, [00:39:00] all of this in a bullet journal using their methodology. But the reason I point this out is their indexing system, uh, is basically in the front of a bullet journal.

You write down. Uh, as you’re adding new notes to it, you’re building an index, you flip back to the front and say on page 53 through 57, uh, I’m writing about topic X, Y, and Z. Right? This is a very simple paper way to build that. And over time you look super cool ’cause you have. A bookshelf full of different journals, but you actually have organized them as you go.

’cause all you have to do is flip, flip to the front cover and say, that’s the one where I wrote about X, Y, and Z. And flip to that page, it’s not lost in there forever. So bullet journaling’s, really fun. I’ve done that. Many times over the years, and I end up always drifting back to, to digital stuff ultimately for just for the searchability, but that’s an option for you.

Uh, there’s other connected note taking apps like Rome Research was a big one that kicked it off, but a lot of people now, the kind of the hero of personal [00:40:00] knowledge management apps is obsidian. It’s free, it’s a markdown editor, folder based, tag based, like all that stuff you can do within obsidian and you interconnect stuff.

Think about like Wikipedia. Obsidian is a way to build a personal wiki for your life. So that’s a very popular one. In fact, my friend Bodhi Quirk is doing a, a workshop on this in our Redeeming Productivity Academy this week. Um, that’s our membership program. So if you join, uh, this week, you’ll get to watch that.

Or if you join later, that’s gonna be in our workshop archives as well too. This is a really cool one that’s gained a lot of popularity in the last five years. There’s gross notion. I’ve mentioned notion, uh, already. Uh, you can organize stuff in there through databases. There’s a lot more customizable.

The look and feel of it. Again, our Christian productivity planner@christianproductivity.com has that as part of it, along with goals, habits, all that kind of stuff as well. All in one place. But that’s a digital one. A lot of folks like, [00:41:00] what if you wanna go real simple, huh? What if you’re like, I just want one giant document to rule them all.

Well, sir, uh, this is actually what I think he still does it. Matthew Everhard, if you follow him on YouTube, um, I’ve had him on the podcast a few times. And I think he still does this. He has huge documents, like multi hundred. Probably thousands of pages on theology or commentary, rolling commentary on the Bible.

He just says one document. He’s like, I don’t want to have all this interconnected, fancy stuff. He says, one place and it builds a table of contents as I go automatically and everything I want one document. If I’m wondering where it is, I go in there and hit control F and I find it. So that’s another way to go about it.

It’s synced everywhere. If you’re a Google person, you’re in that world. You don’t have to get into all this fancy stuff. That’s what I’m trying to show you with this survey is even in the app front, you can go simple or you can go complex. Try to find one that suits your personality. [00:42:00] Um, another, just on the simple front, I remember hearing Ian Murray, he’s an author.

He written a lot of biographies for banner of Truth. I remember hearing him at a conference one time, talk about how he takes notes and he just writes them on the front cover of books. So this is specifically book notes, but when he’s reading a book, each chapter, he writes a little outline, his own outline.

At the top of the chapter as he’s reading the book. And then, uh, he writes a little outline at the front of the book and on the back of the book on what’s called the end papers. That’s where he stores his notes. And so the books themselves are. The notebook. Isn’t that cool? So as he’s taking book notes, he’s saying, Hey, if I’m ever wondering what I thought about this book, I’ll just pull it off the bookshelf and, and I’ll look at it.

Uh, I think that’s really cool. And of course you can get even more complicated in this. I use a program called Read Wise. Uh, which will take notes from like your Kindle highlights and it will store them. Uh, but also now they have Read Wise Reader that’s [00:43:00] part of it. So any kind of like blog feeds or email newsletters, I get they all go into Read Wise any highlights I take get synced into my personal library there and it actually syncs them into Loge, my note taking app.

But it also works with, it can work with Notion or obsidian or a bunch of other ones. I think Evernote too. And so the. The stuff I’m highlighting is getting synced into my note taking system too. So I think that’s really cool because then when I’m going back through and I’m processing it, I can see all the stuff I thought was valuable, quotes, things like that, and I can sort through it.

I can do that reap process on it later. So, man, I probably overwhelmed you guys. This got a little bit in the weeds. Sorry. But if you’ve stuck around till now, my, my hope is that. This little survey of the options out there will just get you thinking if there’s, don’t be overwhelmed. If there’s one on here that you were like, that sounds interesting, go get the app or get the notebook, go dig deeper down that rabbit hole and [00:44:00] start taking notes.

That’s the takeaway I want to give you is. If any system’s better than no system, just start really simply. You can change it as you go. Life changes. You don’t need to commit to something for the rest of your life. Try a bullet journal for a few months. Try doing Evernote for a few months and see what sticks.

And you’ll probably end up transforming it into something totally different than what we start with over time. And that’s okay. You’re personalizing it. The important thing is you’re taking the notes and that’s helping you to become a better steward of the knowledge God brings your way. That’s my prayer for you.

Okay. Uh, want to now just turn to a question of the week that kind of pertains to this topic as well. Um, this is sort of a, a new. Format I’m trying here on the podcast, so forgive the hiccups. I wanted to include a question. I get a lot of questions. I have a, a database of hundreds of questions people have sent me, and so I just pull one out that’s [00:45:00] relevant to the topic.

And I thought this one was a good question on the topic of note taking. Maybe you’ve run into this one. Uh, so this was from an anonymous newsletter reader, but he or she said if I were to request any topic for you to discuss, it’d be the feeling of being overwhelmed, uh, or the feeling of overwhelmed.

That’s created by stuff. He explains, I’ve accumulated books and notes and journals in a desire to have better quality and good organization skills, but now I’m in the process of eliminating a lot of stuff that’s been a product of me in pursuit of better organization. So do you get that? This person has acquired a bunch of notebooks, a bunch of different ways of organizing their life, and now they’re like, this is all clutter.

Now less, I’m literally less organized in my pursuit of organizing, so that that can be a problem. I have a, a graveyard here of, uh, planners that I’ve bought over the years that I’ve never used. Maybe you do too, but this can be especially true and I’ll, [00:46:00] I’ll answer it just narrowly in the aspect of knowledge management.

You see I have a bunch of notebooks. I have a bunch of app subscriptions. I have maybe notes spread across a different bunch of different apps. And now it just feels like I’m, I’m so overwhelmed, I don’t even wanna look at it. And maybe you’re somebody, it’s even in the same app. You’re like, I just, I started with this system.

I thought it was gonna be genius, and now it’s just a mess. What do you do then? I’m overwhelmed by it. Start fresh. That’s, that’s my idea. Uh, start fresh. Don’t try to migrate everything right now. You can do that eventually. But the thing I’ve learned over the years of, I, I’ve used various apps, I have various notebooks and note taking systems.

I kind of just have this. Archive of stuff and generally I kind of know where most things are. I have at different times done big projects of migrating everything to a different app and that kind of stuff. There’s a lot of digitization I’ve done over the years with old notes or like, I do all my sermon notes by hand and I’ve gone through and, and tried to type those up, or at least scan them [00:47:00] in so I have those somewhere digitally.

That’s cool. And that’s a, that’s a long term project, but what I’m trying to save you from with this advice is getting paralyzed by that. Maybe you’ll never migrate it. Yeah, that’s fine. Put it in a box or, or just main maintain access to that stuff or export it us to CSV. If it’s digital, just start fresh.

Just say, okay, I’m gonna try a simpler system this time and I’m gonna work there and I’m gonna try to stick to that. And if it doesn’t work out, you can do something else with that later too. But just don’t be paralyzed by it. At the end of the day, you’re not taking your notebook system with you, right, like to heaven, like when you die, it’s gone.

What really matters in all of this, and try to keep this top of mind is you’re not trying to build a perfect archive of all your information. You’re not trying to build a second brain. I actually don’t like that term because we’re not transhumanists. We’re not trying to transcend the body and upload ourselves to the cloud.

We’re trying to be [00:48:00] faithful. Note taking is a tool that helps me be faithful with knowledge, but ultimately what I’m concerned about is what note taking is doing to me as it helps me process information so that I’m thinking more clearly. I, I, I have a more consistent worldview across domains of knowledge that’s I care about what’s happening to me.

So if all my notebooks burnt up tomorrow in a fire, I would be sad, but. What really matters is that I’m still here and I’m using the knowledge that processing things through writing helped me to do so. I dunno, hopefully that that helps you freeze you up a little bit from that burden of saying, it’s all disorganized, it’s a mess, put it away, start fresh.

But is the process and what it does to you is what matters most.

I just wanna finish with a quote from Francis Bacon, a little couple words of wisdom for us. He said, write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most [00:49:00] valuable. I found that true in my own experience when I’m in the shower or taking a walk or on vacation and my mind’s just ruminating.

I have a great idea. That’s why having some place to, to, to, uh. Receive those ideas. To write them down is so important. Capture ’em somewhere. Process them later. Examine them. Apply them, and do something with them. Well, thanks for listening. If you have any ideas on note taking, feel free to share ’em in the comments.

Or you can always email me at Reagan. That’s R-E-A-G-A n@redeemingproductivity.com. And if you have questions that you’re like, Hey, I’d love to hear this answered on a future episode, send those also toReagan@redeemingproductivity.com and hopefully I’ll be able to share an answer to your question in a future episode.

Well, that’s all I have for you this week. If you’d like to dig deeper into personal productivity from a Christian worldview, we have loads of resources@redeemingproductivity.com. I just released a new ultimate guide [00:50:00] last week on going paperless with your documents. So, uh, not your personal notes, but like.

Medical records, tax stuff, all of that. How do you go paperless with that? If you go to redeeming productivity.com/paperless, the full guide is there. You can get a little PDF checklist and turn that onerous task into something that is step by step. But hopefully I’ll see you again here next week, Lord willing. But until I do remember this, in whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.